The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1887-09-16

Then I start broad awake, realizing
suddenly that only one person in the
world would take the trouble to sere-
made me, and that have every reason
to suppose him to be miles away.
1T must be bagpipes, I think, in a
dazed sort of way. l have never
heard them. but know they are weird
and uncanny The tune, too, is one
that have never heard before. Indeed,
as I listen more closely, l doubt
whether there IS any tune at all.
Wagner! Yes. that is it. Ralph is
serenading me upon the bagpipes with
selections from Wagner He was
always anxious that I should hear
some of the Emusic of the future" nd
has taken this way. 1t is a strange
idea, perhaps, but people will do
| strange things now and then. If only
Aunt Nancy and Aunt Lavinia
do not hear it! TIL ey would certainly
think him quite mad and all hopes Of Il
smooth settlement of our difficulties
| would be over l dare not open the
! window lest they should hear it, and
without doing Sol can see nothing. So
1 lie awake listening until the music
ceases, and Ralph has gone away dis
! cOuraged.
Aunt Nancy is late for breakfast. In
all the years which | have spent in the
cottage can not remember that such
a thing has ever happened before.
We have been waiting full fifteen min
utes when she makes her appearance.
Aunt Layinia and l have little to say
TO each other in the interval. l am
| wond ering too much about Ralph to
talk, and Aunt Lavina often has silent
fits. When Aunt Nancy comes down
| ut last she is pale, and there are dark
| circles under her eyes. She acknowl-
edges to a headache and a disturbed
night. Aunt Lavinia looks at her visit
fully. She. too, is pale, but can not
tell whether or not her pallor is caused
by Aunt Nancy's unprecedented ac-
| acknowledgement of indisposition.
All day l am thinking of Ralph,
starting at every ring of the door-ben,
staring at every one who passes the
| window, or whom l meet in my walks.
Surely if it were he who serenaded
me-and who else could it be?-
1 must see or hear of him in the
course of the day. But the hours
glide by and evening comes, and still
no Ralph appears. There is positively
nothing ont of the ordinary course,
except that Aunt Nancy lies. silent and
subdued. upon the lounge, with her
eyes shaded from the light, while
Aunt Lavinia moves softly about or
sits in silence, neglecting her own en-
| broidery to knit upon Aunt Nancy's
gray stockings.
As the days go by it dawns upon me
that there is a singular change in the
| aspect of things in the cottage. I am
| struck by it first. l think. the morning
after the night when have for the
second time heard the strange music.
Aunt Nancy pauses as she is filling
the cups, aud looks at Aunt Lavinia.
You always like three humps, Lavi-
nia D." she says. and drops them into
the cup.
There would be nothing strange
about this to others, l suppose, but TO
me, who have become accustomed to
the daily wrangle over the third lump,
it seems positively uncanny. Then
Aunt Lavinia carefully selects for her
self the GRUMPY inside biscuit, leaving
for Aunt Nancy the crusty outside one
which has hitherto been a
bone of contention between
them. Aunt Nancy leaves
Aunt Lavinia to sit unrebuked in the
full glare of sunshine which her thin
blood loves. and L notice that Aunt
Lavinia has put away her delicate en-
broideries, and bushes herself in knit
ting mittens which are a fit match for
Aunt Nancy's famous stockings. Aunt
Nancy herself observes this at last
and asks:
where is your embroidery, La
vinia? Is the cushion finished al-
ready?"
Aunt Lavinia looks up, and were il
not so wild a fancy, 1 could almost i'm
in her eyes.
1T worries YOU" she says, gently ,
land life may be short for either or
both of us. What use is there in vast
ing what is left of it in follies, or en-
differing it oy useless quarrels?"
Aunt Nancy looks at her hard for a
moment 1t seems as if a question
were upon her lips. but if so. she bites
it off short, and turns away without
reply.
Somehow life at the cottage has
grown so quiet that it seems almost
sad. What has come over Aunt
Nancy and Aunt Lavinia l can not
tell. Aunt Nancy no longer pooh
hoos Aunt Lavinia's little ailments in
her old airy fashion, but watches
over aud coddlcs her to an
| extent which even think
rather absurd. She may SIT or lie
all day. if she will, without being in
| cessantly routed out to take the exer-
else she loathes but which Aunt
Nancy has always declared 10 be absO-
lutely essential to every reason able be-
ing. Her favoritc dishes, little dain-
ties and llickshaws, which Aunt Nancy
scorn7, appear on the table at every
meal Once Aunt Layinia would have
reveled in them, but now she seems
90 find them strangely tasteless and in
sipid.
care they not well-cOOked?" asks
Aunt Nancy, watching her wistfully.
And Aunt Lavinia rouses herself to an
appearance of keen enjoyment, which
does not for moment impose upon
Aunt Nancy or me.
There is less apparent change in
Aunt Lavinia' demeauor toward Aunt
Nancy, for she was always The mildeI
of the two and seldom the aggressor il
their wrangles The principal differ
ence seems to me to consist in a Ger
tain timiditv and nervousness which
have grown upon her. Every sudden
, sound makes her start, and her eyes
have a wis tfnl. anprehensiYe look as